


A New Covenant

by Cysteine



Category: Carmilla (Web Series), Underworld (Movies)
Genre: A New Covenant, Carmilla Big Bang Challenge 2015, F/F, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-16
Updated: 2015-11-16
Packaged: 2018-04-29 17:41:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 20,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5136809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cysteine/pseuds/Cysteine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Laura's videos went viral and caused the near extermination of vampires, now she and LaFontaine have to work with Danny and the Lycans to rescue her ex and the best hope they all have for survival - Selene.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is AU after Carmilla (Season 2, episode 19, after the first two minutes)

[](http://tinypic.com?ref=2604d5l)

**_PROLOGUE_ **

The Vampire and Lycans had been at war for centuries before I was born. Their endless conflict was hidden from the human world. I was turned by Viktor, and given the strength to avenge my family against the lycans.

I was good at it.

Then I found Michael Corvin. A human that was turned into neither a Vampire or Lycan, but a hybrid of the two. Now everything's changed. Allies turned into enemies, and the Vampire Elders I had protected for over six centuries, now wanted me dead.

We retaliated.

I killed the Elders.

And for a brief moment of time, it was safe. But then… A new darkness arose, from the most unlikely souce: a human girl and her vlog in Silas University.

* * *

Laura queued up the clip from her video blog and sat in front of her camera. She had aged a lot in the six months since she stopped making her videos, and had lost a lot more than she had ever thought possible. Her eyes had dark rings around them and her hair was, somehow, more limp than ever.

But she was going to change this. She hit record, nodded to herself, and played the last clip in the corner of the screen as an intro to her new vlog.

_‘After Carm blew out of there, Vordenberg rallied the troops - mostly the Summers and the Zetas, for a full scale vampire hunt - which would normally be a death sentence, but he seems to have them souped up somehow. Like supernatural steroids._

_‘We still don't know what that's about._

_‘It's not all bad news though! The sales to the Corvae Corporation have stopped and the corporate strike teams seems to have backed off.’_

The video ended, and she closed out the screen in the corner. Even now, she had to fight back tears as she continued on.

“That was six months ago. I never thought that my video project would... hell, could... cause this much devastation.” Laura put up the international news piece that was looped on SNN up in the corner of the screen and started it.

_'In the nine days since the college girl’s videos revealed the existence of the non-human species, a secret government conspiracy to hide the truth has been uncovered. It is estimated that these individuals number in the thousands, and that the number of people infected by them has skyrocketed. Military sources have confirmed that the primary measures of defense against these non-humans are based on ultraviolet light and silver, which these human-like creatures appear to have a fatal sensitivity towards. Tents have been erected for paramedic control in the city. A test will be administered to verify if you clear of infection.’_

Laura paused the video, rolling her eyes as she showed the camera a white plastic ID strip labeling her as “VERIFIED HUMAN” and the date of her last blood test that was now mandatory to wear at all times. “I had seen the gnomes around campus, not to mention a few students who were all… _slime and antlers…_ but I never thought the world would react the way it did.”

"I thought we were doing the right thing; saving girls from being sacrificed to some Eldritch Horror. But, ignorance is bliss, right?" Laura shook her head; her conscience had torn her heart out too many times and yet it still hurt. She resumed the video.

_‘A shocking discovery. Not one but two distinct species' made of infecting humans are existing within the human population. The existence of vampires and werewolves now it appears to have an actual basis. The government refuses to share any new information. But we have gleaned from a report… what appears to be a mass cleansing.’_

"Laura, we're out in 5." LaFontaine said in the background, putting on a lab coat and ID that was swiped from Antigen Corporation. Hanging around their neck was a thumb drive containing a copy of JP Armitage. They checked the batteries in their taser gun and holstered it inside the jacket.

Laura nodded to the pair of them, glad to have them here to keep her head straight. She turned back to the camera to continue her monologue.

"So apparently the trick with Old Ones, is to not let the whole world know that they exist. Vordenberg apparently didn’t realize that when he used my videos to ‘out’ the existence of vampires to the rest of the world, so Lophii’s final act as it was slain by the Summer Society and the Zetas would be to make itself a worldwide sensation. 

"You can guess how society reacted to finding out that Elder Gods and vampires exist. People panicked and started attacking everyone who looked like a member of The Cure, or they started searching for and worshipping the Old Ones. Then came the global martial law, and a complete purge of preternatural creatures."

LaFontaine turned to the camera, and did their best to not roll their eyes. "People were afraid, and governments did their best to contain the information for as long as they could. That, of course, didn't turn out well seeing as vampires aren't the friendliest bunch-"

Laura's eyes were red but there were no more tears left. "It didn't start like that, though! At first it was just Baron Vordenberg and the Zetas waving torches and pitchforks, but then Carmilla and Mattie went off on their rampage and, well…" Her throat choked up slightly. "Carmilla hasn’t been seen in months, and I’ve heard rumors that Mattie went underground.”

LaFonatine continued. “What we do know is this: the militaries of the world pretty much united and exterminated vampire-kind, burning their bodies in giant bonfires and leaving the remains to meet sunrise. The Lycanthropes, of course, knew how to lay low and they only suffered major losses instead of outright extinction."

A pained expression went across the tiny gay's face. "Well, that's not _entirely_ accurate. The vampires _aren't_ extinct. Apparently, Antigen has promised a vaccine to stop humans from getting turned into Vampires and Lycans, meaning that Dr. Lane has to have been keeping some vampires on ice for study, and according to my source..." Laura trailed off, looking visibly nervous and worried.

"Perry _died_ trying to protect vampires like Carmilla. We **are** going to get her back."

* * *

It was near evening when LaFontaine drove the van into the staging area, pulling out their ID to the guards and was tested with both a UV light and a silver strip to look for an allergic reaction. The guard nodded and looked into the rear and saw a crate labeled “BIOHAZARDOUS WASTE” and asked them to open it up for inspection.

“Pretty certain we’re not supposed to open it up and just breathe in whatever toxins are in it. I for one like having both of my lungs _intact_ and my face _not melting off._ ”

The guard looked puzzled for a second, then nodded and tapped the top of the van, clearing it for entry into Antigen Labs. They breathed a sigh of relief as Laura opened the crate and took a few quick gasps of air.

Laura put on her own lab coat and earpiece, turning it on and doing a mic check.

“Okay, how do I sound?”

“Loud and clear, Hollis.” LaF responded, parking the van at the loading dock. “Just like we planned out, I get us into the lab area and unleash JP 1.5 to attack the security system and create bedlam, you make the rendezvous with _our contact_ and we’ll get our people out, easy-peasy.”

“She has a name, you know.” Laura said over the earpieces.

“Kirsch was a naive puppy in all this, but Danny knew better. She knew what they were going to do to JP 2.0, even though he never hurt anyone!”

“Might I remind everyone that we are here and have a job to do?” The disembodied voice of JP Armitage interrupted with a crisp London accent. “My copy may have perished alongside Miss Perry, but I fear that if we do not exit this vehicle and begin this covert mission, their deaths shall be in vain.”

The pair of them agreed as Laura and LaFontaine made their way into Antigen Labs, the microchipped ID of Danny Lawrence giving them access to the laboratory. LaF found a computer terminal and plugged the thumb drive of JP 1.5 into the computer, muttering a quiet plea as the sentient being slipped in.

“Give her hell, Peeves.”

* * *

Laura made her way through the lab, mind stuck on her last memory of Perry. She was barely in the camera frame when it happened; just passing by the front door as breaching charges went off.

One second, Laura was just talking about her disbelief that the Summer Society and the Zetas were all gung-ho about hunting down all of the vampires, and the next she was stunned and on the floor. Her memory of that night was fragmented, but the webcam on her laptop recorded everything, even down to the look of horror on Kirsch’s face as there was just red all over the entryway.

_All because they miscalculated the amount of C4 to use._

Laura deleted the video, but she couldn't get the memory of Perry's death out of her mind. She was the OCD cleaner of the group, so mopping up her remains was left up to Laura. LaFontaine never seemed to fully recover, having lost their longest friend as well as their greatest scientific feat to date, but miraculously within a month they started speaking again.

At first it sounded like the ramblings of a mad person, but soon after a quick defrag and a hastily built patch, JP 1.0 was revived from LaF’s Recycle bin. A good chunk of his memory seemed to be corrupted, but the personality and vocabulary subroutines seemed in working order. It was enough to run on a phone and make him mobile again as LaF made a more stable upgrade on their PC that could access Bluetooth and WiFi signals.

Laura was glad to have the two of them back for a semblance of normalcy while the world seemed to quickly go to hell. Daily sweeps were expected, and individuals who failed the random mandatory blood tests were executed on site. And she hated that the PSA propaganda to report suspected Vampire or Lycanthrope activity used her clip when Carmilla had bitten her.

She really hated seeing her face in pro-genocide propaganda, and hoped that she could save the vampires from extinction. By the exit doors, she saw the familiar camouflage-clad ginger giant waving her over, holding her Heckler & Koch MP5A3 at the low ready.

She smiled and started to rush over to her when she heard another voice call out to her.

“Hey, what are you doing here?!” Laura’s head spun to see a male scientist in a white lab coat about ten feet away, looking between her and Danny, wondering why the security wasn’t apprehending her.

Laura knew she had to act quickly as she ran at him, eyes locked on his hands as they moved inside the long coat. _It would be just like practice; disarm the knife and disable the person._ As the hand came out, she grappled it and twisted it away, making him lose his grip by the thumb first as she focused on sending her knee through his groin, doubling him over in pain as she followed through with her right elbow crushing into his nose, an audible cracking sound could be heard before the radio smashed to the ground. She finished up with a round kick to their head, knocking them out cold before she really had time to think about what she was doing.

“Okay… okay.” Laura panted as she blinked and felt her awareness expand to see the whole room again. There was no knife, just a radio. She nearly killed an unarmed man. _One that would have called for reinforcements._ It had been while since she had gotten that rush of adrenaline, and she knew it wouldn’t be the last one tonight as she picked up the radio and removed the batteries, ensuring that it wouldn’t send off a distress signal.

“Laura, whoa. How did you-”

“Told you I started Krav Maga at age eight, remember? Never underestimate the tiny cute ones.”

“LaF is in place?” Danny asked as she clasped the short brunette’s shoulder in greeting.

“Yeah, any moment now and JP should be-”

The lights to the facility flickered as the sound of electromagnetic locks failed. As the lights tried to come back on, an alarm klaxon sputtered to life, albeit half-heartedly.

_“Security violation, level X. All personnel to-”_

It went silent as everything went dark.

“How’s my timing, Miss Hollis?” JP's synthesized voice crackled into the earpiece. Laura smirked at that as her eyes adjusted to the darkness.

“Impeccable. Can you give us some light here while you blackout the rest of the facility?”

Moments later, the lights flickered dimly and were bright enough for them to make their way through.

“Okay, let’s go.” Danny said, putting the butt of her rifle into her shoulder pocket and took point as she lead Laura down to the secondary cryogenics lab.

* * *

LaFontaine had saved the research notes that were on the server onto the local PC’s hard drive and was already ripping the one terabyte SSD drive out of the machine when JP 1.5 chirped in their earpiece.

“Miss Hollis and her-” LaF cut him off abruptly.

“-they on schedule?”

“Yes, they are.”

“Good. Which way to Selene?” The lights dimmed in the room, except for one near a door labeled ‘Emergency Exit’. “You’re enjoying this too much, JP.”

“Possibly, however, I must warn you that security is on their way and I believe that Antigen will soon discover me and shut down their computerized security and go for manual.” Armitage’s mechanized voice couldn’t express emotion, but LaFontaine was certain that he was concerned.

“Will you be okay?” LaFontaine knew that JP 1.0 was still on their phone, but it still felt like they were sacrificing JP here.

“I’ll be fine, buddy. You need me here wiping your tracks, anyways. This was always part of the plan. Just let me do my job.”

LaF pocketed the hard drive in their cargo pants pocket, unholstered the taser, and clicked on the red laser as they made their way through the fake exit and went down into the secret lab.

* * *

_"Defrost sequence completed.”_

Laura had mentally prepared herself for this moment. She knew she was going to see an unconscious Carmilla, one that had been drugged and frozen not unlike the time her so-called ‘Mother’ locked her in a coffin and left her to rot over a century ago.

What she hadn’t expected was to see her ex girlfriend emaciated and shriveled up like a raisin. She was wearing her black leather pants tucked into her combat boots, black tee, and a sleeveless cape-duster thing that just screamed _‘Bleh! I’m a vampire out to eat you!’_. She wasn’t just undead, she looked dried up like an ancient mummy.

“We sure she’s still… you know?”

“Positive, the brainwave scans don’t lie.”

“Holy fuck, she’s going to need blood.”

“Way ahead of you, short stuff.” Danny had a one liter bag of type O blood on her as Laura recognized the Corvus Corporation logo on it. It had been rumored that vampires had learned to clone and synthesize blood in order to use it as a cash crop and to reduce predation on the humans, but the company stayed alive even as the Purges began.

Laura mentally kicked herself back into gear and cracked open the plexiglass container, hands burning from the extreme temperature. An alarm went off overhead as a mechanical voice repeated the warning: _“Subject 2 has escaped. Security units on alert!”_

Danny wasted a bullet to take out the offending speaker.

“Crap that’s cold! Do you think she’ll be okay?”

“She’s undead, so I doubt frostbite will bother her.” Danny handed Laura the pouch and pricked the end of the tube for her, pinching it shut. “Slip this end into her mouth and massage her neck to induce swallowing.”

“How do you know all this?”

“Raze had to do something similar for... doesn’t matter,” Danny shrugged, “we’re on a tight schedule.”

Laura got the tip of the blood bag into Carmilla’s desiccated lips, and wondered if a single liter would be enough to rehydrate her. Danny’s head perked and turned with an unusual quickness as Laura’s earbud chirped to life.

“You’ve got a security detail coming, looks to be two armed guards and a scientist,” JP chirped crisply, “thermals suggest the guards are Lycans.”

Laura kept holding the bag over the body of Carmilla as she ducked down the best she could as Danny had her weapon trained on the doorway. “Danny, two of them-”

“Lycans. Got it.”

“You can hear JP from there?”

“I can smell them.” Danny pulled out her sidearm with an extended mag sticking out of it and from the drop holster on her thigh and handed it to Laura. “Silver Nitrate rounds suspended in Mercury. Kills lycans really fast, kills humans really slow.”

Laura took the pistol gingerly and set it down by her feet, dropping the blood bag slightly as she did so. Icy fingers seized her own, making the diminutive brunette jump as she realized the skeletal fingers that were clasping her own were Carmilla’s.

“You okay, Carm?” Laura said gently, extricating her hands from the blood bag as the wan, shriveled figure sucked on the blood bag like a nursing baby. The vampire seemed oblivious to the rest of the world as heavy banging echoed through the lab.

“Sounds like they have a battering ram out there!” Danny yelled over the din, “Carmilla, we gotta go!”

“Miss Hollis, the electromagnetic lock will hold. I don’t know about the door itself.” Jeep informed Laura as she picked up the Glock 31 and worked the slide to chamber the first round. Her father had taken her to a firing range once or twice when she was growing up, but now she was up against two faster-than-human lycanthropes and an actual human being.  
  
A human willing to kill her to keep a frozen, starved Carmilla here for experiments.  
  
Danny turned her head quickly to check on Carmilla as she sighted down her rifle as the steel doors’ hinges buckled. “Stay behind me, Laura!”

* * *

 

Selene sucked down the blood bag as she searched the lab for weapons, settling for a few used scalpels. There was no sign of Michael, so she had to assume that he didn’t get captured by Antigen like she had. The Death Dealer politely turned down LaFontaine’s proffered taser and promised to get them a real weapon from the first armed person she has to kill on her way out.

“You’re already planning on having to kill your way out?” LaF was surprised at how quickly their plan was falling apart due to the response time of security. They were even more confused as to how Antigen was employing werewolves here without knowing it.

“I’m a Death Dealer; most of my plans don’t involve negotiations or making platitudes. That was Kraven’s thing, and he’s dead. Now, where is the rest of your team?”

“JP says they are reviving Carm, but that two lycans posing as security guards are trying to break through the door to their lab down the hallway.”

“Your friend is the disembodied voice in your head?”

“Earpiece,” LaFontaine pointed to their right ear. “He’s real, just... doesn’t have a physical body anymore.”

“Right. I can’t believe I’m getting rescued by humans.” Selene looked at the Corvus Corp logo as she dropped the now-empty blood bag. “At least Marcus’ company is still around.”

“Carmilla is taking too long to revive and security is going to break through that door any second, we need to go now.”

Selene nodded once. “What’s the quickest path there?”

“Jeep, light the way!”

The electromagnetic lock released as the lights went out, but it didn’t bother Selene at all. In fact, she reveled in it. It had been awhile since she had a good challenge, and smelling the 5 mortals armed with guns in the hallway was a good start. As the anticipation built, she twirled the medical scalpel in her fingers for a kind of reverse knife grip.

_“Subject 1 has escaped. Security units on alert!_

_Subject 2 has escaped. Security units on alert!”_

“Move, people, move!”

“Alpha team is in position.”

“Stop where you are! This area is prohibited!”

“Load the sedative grenades.”

As the security team turned on the tac-rail mounted lights on their rifles, Selene put on a burst of speed and slashed the throats of the first four humans and let them drop, jabbing the scalpel into the jugular of the fifth one, spurting hot blood out like a fountain. In the dimly flashing hallway, Selene let her fangs plunge into him as she drank down fresh human blood.

The lights came back on as LaFontaine came running, eyes gaping at the carnage that happened in the blink of an eye. “Oh wow, that was… do you have night vision?”

One of her eyebrows arched ever so slightly as she nodded to a dead, armed guard. “Do you know how to shoot?” She frowned at the STI GP6 pistols but went ahead and looted the bodies for every spare magazine they had.

“I did a speed-run of Call of Duty in under two hours.” LaF said, mirroring her actions as they both armed themselves and collected spare magazines.

Selene looked at LaF oddly as she shook her head ever so slightly. “Just stay behind me and don’t shoot me in the back. _I will remember if you do_.” The lights turned dimly on in a path that Selene ran, both pistols up and firing as she tore her way through the guards who tried to fight her.

* * *

 

The door failed at the hinges and twisted away into scrap, still attached at the electromagnetic lock. Two fully transformed werewolves bounded through the doorway as Danny opened fire with controlled three round bursts, gritting her teeth as she tracked one and lead her shot in order to get two rounds a lycans’ heart, killing it instantly.

Laura’s first shot went wide while the second one missed the werewolf coming right at her and instead tore through the stomach of the human scientist that was still at the door, dropping him instantly. The final lycan closed the distance in two jumps, leaving her panicked and with a death-grip on the trigger as she expended the clip in under two seconds.

The dead Lycan dropped right in front of her and Carmilla, oozing silver from every bullet that perforated him.

“Easy there, Rambo.” Danny said, holding a hand up to slowly retrieve her pistol from the girl, “You got him. Check Carmilla.”

Danny turned to see the human writhing in pain as the silver and mercury were mixing with his stomach acids and leaking into his veins. She knew he’d suffer for at least half an hour this way, but couldn’t find any empathy for him or the rogue clan of lycans. It was only when Laura gasped in recognition that she took a second look.

“Danny, that’s Alan from the Alchemy Club! We assumed Vordenberg had to have some sort of link to have Carmilla here at Antigen, but hiring the Alchemists as researchers?”

“Doesn’t explain why they have lycan security; they were officially declared extinct ever since The Cleansing.” Danny replied, raising her rifle momentarily as she scented the air. “LaFontaine?”

The lights in the room came back up as Selene stood in the doorway, giving a wary eye to the armed redhead. Alan grunted as he forced himself onto all fours and began to crawl away, only to get pinned down by the Death Dealer’s boot as Selene fired a single shot into his skull, blasting the front of his skull and face like a smashed watermelon all over the floor.

The bright blue eyes of the vampire met the hazel eyes of the tall ginger. “You must be Danny. I’m Selene.”

Seconds later, LaF caught up, panting slightly. “Yeah, that’s our inside girl.”

Selene’s eyes narrowed at that. “You know she’s a-”

“Raze sent me. He says you two are now even.”

Selene nodded as she came over and saw the dead-looking vampire clutching onto the now empty blood bag, eyes glazed over as the brainwave monitor confirmed that she was still in a catatonic state.

“She’s going to need more blood.”

“You revived just fine, though.” LaFontaine replied.

Selene’s lips pressed thin. “I’m no longer an ordinary vampire. Also, my blood’s too dangerous to share.”

Laura looked around and, grimacing, offered up her wrist. Selene shook her head.

“Sorry dear, but she’s going to need something with a bit more kick than human. Danny?”

Laura and LaFontaine exchanged a look as their concerns had finally been confirmed. Danny shook her head at Selene.

“What? No, I’m not about to be a snack for Elvira there!”

“You want to carry her out?” Selene retorted, holding up a scalpel.

“Danny, please.” Laura was pleading, “You know what she meant to me.”

“You’re not upset that I hid the fact that I’m a lycanthrope?”

“No, why would I be?”

It didn’t take long before Danny cut the fleshy part of her left palm, just under the thumb and rested it over the comatose vampire’s lips. “I can’t believe I am doing this.”

LaFontaine had their cell phone out and swiped back and forth, frowning at the display. “JP is down, but the last thing he did was send me stills from the security feed.” They put away their cell phone and sneered. “They booted our van and wired something underneath it.”

Selene’s tongue ran over the tips of her fangs in thought. “There was no backup escape plan, was there?”

LaF shook their head as Danny pulled her hand back from the sputtering vampire beneath her, flashing a nervous look to Selene. Carmilla sat up, coughing and spitting the taste of blood out of her mouth.

“What the hell happened to me…?” She looked at Selene and blinked. “And why is Viktor’s protégé here?”

Selene spoke up. “Mircalla Karnstein. You’re from _Lilith’s_ coven. I know all about your scurrying about, currying favors for the Old Ones, and betraying people after you’ve _laid on your back for them_. Including killing your Coven leader.”

“Didn’t you just do the same thing? And it’s Carmilla now.” She tousled her hair as she worked to climb out of the cryogenic chamber. As she took in her surroundings, she noticed how Danny put herself in front of Laura to shield her protectively as they held each other’s hands. “Wait, are you two together now? LaFontaine, plug me back in, I don’t think I want to see this.”

Though crestfallen and a bit ashamed, Laura stepped around her girlfriend and spoke up. “We came to rescue you Carmilla; It’s been over six months since you disappeared. What do you last recall?”

“Vordenberg and his juiced-up minions chasing me down and used stun grenades. Why do I taste… lycan blood?” Carmilla inquired, looking for anything to get the taste out of her mouth.

“You weren’t waking up with the cloned blood, so Danny had to give you something with a bit more juice behind it.” LaF replied sheepishly.

“Don’t blame her, I asked her to.” Laura preempted, knowing that Carmilla would probably blow up at her for this. Her eyes darted to the gauze on Danny’s left hand.

“What?! There are rules, Laura! You don’t feed Gizmo after midnight and you DON’T FEED ME A GINGER!” Carmilla climbed out of the container and kept splitting onto the floor. “Particularly not one that you’re in congress with now!”

“Hey, you’re welcome, fang-face.” Danny retorted, turning to Laura. “Told you she wouldn’t be grateful.”

“We still have to get out of here, people. Danny, you help the humans while _Carmilla_ and I make a distraction out of the security that’s on their way.”

“Sorry, sweet-cheeks, but I’m not fully recovered.” Carmilla said, looking at the dead human on the ground, “and I’m still going to need another pint. Preferably one that's not poisoned with quicksilver.”

LaFontaine had gathered a few chemicals and glass bottles and had them on a nearby table. “I have the makings for a smokescreen, liquid nitrogen bombs, and if I rig the fire sprinklers to go off after a silver grenade, I might be able to taser an entire hallway.”

Selene looked impressed at that. “Okay, LaFontaine is with me. Danny, the rest of them are your responsibility. Go!”


	2. Chapter 2

“Can you run?” Laura asked Carm, wary about getting too close to her.

Carmilla grunted, her pallor still more grey than human. “I can keep up. It’s like they drugged me with something before they put me on ice.”

Danny frowned at that. “Rumor has it that it was part of the deal; Antigen could have you as long as you weren’t killed and made to suffer… forever.”

“God he can hold a grudge. What does it take for a guy to accept ‘no’ as an answer?” Carmilla huffed as the three of them made their way outside and Carmilla pointed out the sewer access nearby.

“I’m on it.” Danny moved the manhole cover by herself as Laura had a new clip in the pistol and went down first, quickly followed by Carmilla. Laura kept the pistol pointed out into the darkness as her eyes adjusted as Danny came down, pulling the manhole cover shut behind her.

“We’re clear, cupcake. I don’t see any movement down here.” Carmilla walked past the short brunette as Danny had her weapon up and called her back.

“My eyes are still adjusting, vampire.”

“Will the both of you shut up? I think I hear movement, and your little ex-lover’s quarrel will have to wait.” Danny remarkably got them both to stay quiet for more than a few seconds as she scented the air and retched slightly.

“Well we are in a sewer, Xena.”

“Ugh, could you lay off my girlfriend! We came to save your sorry ass.”

“You came out of guilt. Danny only let you and LaFontaine tag along so that she could keep the heat off of herself and her pack for busting out Selene. Why a lycan is helping her out, I have no idea.”

“Seriously you two, zip it for now and you two can hate-fuck each other later once we’re safe.” Danny snapped at the pair of them.

“If you think I’m still into that self-centered-”

“-and she goes off on yet another naive, self-righteous tirade-”

“HEY!” Danny’s outburst shut them up as some clattering sound in the distance alerted them all that they weren’t alone down there. They all stayed quiet as Danny took the lead and handed Carmilla her rifle and began to strip out of her camouflage uniform.

“Danny?” Laura whispered nervously, getting a hasty kiss on the lips in reply. Carmilla looked away from the exchange, muttering something about wishing she had some food to eat so she could go vomit.

“I smell wolves, but… they smell _wrong_. I’m going to go ahead and try to get a look. If I don’t come back, get Selene to contact Lucian.” With that, Danny’s face and arms started to contort as she stripped herself of her remaining clothing, transforming into a large red werewolf and ran ahead towards the source of the noise.

* * *

They always wanted an excuse to build bombs, and Perry was always shutting them down because it could potentially cause injuries or put eyes out. Now LaF was wearing a fireman’s mask with a mini oxygen tank and making their way through what looked like a cloud-filled room.

They were responsible for at least four fatalities just from the liquid nitrogen bombs due to asphyxiation. One of them had serious cold burns all over their face and might have died from frozen blood in an artery causing a stroke, but LaF couldn’t perform an autopsy to find out.

Selene, on the other hand, shot bullets through the nitrogen fog and had ran up the wall, parkour-style, to avoid the flash freezing as she took out the remaining security detail. None of them seemed to be lycans, however. The shooting and the screams died off as everything went silent, and LaFontaine and Selene made their way out the front doors, re-stocked with magazine clips for the pistols they procured from the guards. Delta team was prepared for a single werewolf or a starved vampire that would come out swinging their claws in a gunfight. They weren’t equipped to handle an ordinary human with above-average intelligence who would gas them.

“That was quite remarkable. Ever think about getting into the business of making custom weapons?” Selene asked them as they found a backpack and started collecting various types of grenades and ammunition, both silver and UV rounds. Delta team seemed less like standard security and more like a small military ready to take over a moderate-sized town.

“Perry used to think that would be too dangerous.”

“What happened to them?”

“Collateral damage, just before the first Purge. Danny was on a sweep-and-clear team, and knew we were hiding a harmless vampire in our home with Laura. But it was a different team that came that day, and apparently Kirsch screwed up the math when he calculated the amount of C4 they would need. She died instantly.”

“I’m sorry.” Selene replied, looking around. “Where’s Laura?”

LaFontaine tapped their earpiece and was met with static. “I’m not sure, but I’m getting interference.”

“What can your friend tell us?”

LaFontaine pulled out their cell phone and opened the JP 1.0 app. He crackled to life in the earpiece, but sounded more robotic than anything.

“Hey buddy, tell me you can find Laura’s signal.”

“Sig-signal… faint.”

“Yeah, I know that, I’m not looking for exact GPS coordinates.”

“They-ey are sh-sh-shielded by le-lea-d-d orrrrr cast-t-t..” LaFontaine grimaced as the app crashed.

“Damn it, JP, I can’t remove anything else from my phone!” A thread of panic was in their voice. “I can’t lose you, too!”

Selene looked at the mortal and was truly impressed with the limits of human advancement. “Your friend is a program?”

“He’s more than that, but… yeah. You could say that for now.”

“He mentioned shielding, do you think that could mean the sewers?” Selene pointed to a sewer access point.

“I guess; I should have put a GPS tag on her!” It didn’t take long for Selene to smell that they all were in deep trouble.

* * *

Four wolves were before Danny; they looked emaciated as if they only lived off of rodents and whatever stray animal that got desperate enough to find their way down here. Or they were cannibalizing their own. She knew to keep her rear to the wall when possible, perhaps kill the largest one quickly in order to establish dominance among this pack.

One of them stood on their hindquarters still, suggesting that they could transform back. Or at least remembered somewhat that they were once human. The smallest of the four made a feint towards her, snapping with its jaw wildly. He was the hungriest and was always forced to eat whatever scraps were left last. Danny growled at him, hoping he’d back off. If he did, that would be one fewer lycan to fight here.

It wasn’t.

He lunged forward, teeth snapping as Danny leaped and used her front claws to tear through his face, gouging out one eye while another claw raked through his face, making him yelp in distress. Rather than back away, though, he lunged again as Danny landed on her rear legs and swiped with her other hand and went through his neck, and she added a bit more thrust as she felt the windpipe in her hand.

It was essentially a mercy killing, she would tell herself later, considering the shape he was in. She hated the sound of a whimpering puppy who had gotten kicked as a child, but now that sound meant that she would survive. The dead lycan fell at her feet as she let his blood drip off of her claws and took a look at the remaining three.

They had her surrounded now, and she couldn’t tell which one was going to strike first. She did her best to keep backing up in order to keep eyes on all three, but none of them lunged forward by themselves to take her on next.

Two of them struck at once, one from behind and the other straight in front of her. Danny tried to dodge the one behind her by jumping toward the one before her, only to realize that it was a feint as that the third lycan jumped into action, claws raking through her arm as the one in front of her shoved her backwards, and the beast behind her sank his teeth deep into her shoulder and neck, tearing into her and shaking as an instinctual kill move.

Danny was coherent enough to not struggle and instead pulled a silver knife from her belt and jabbed it in the neck of the wolf that had her in his jaws. She struck wildly at first, then with better precision as she found the throat and slit upwards, making the second lycan die by her hand within minutes.

She was glad it was not her neck as she rolled away sideways in order to distance herself from the remaining two lycans who were looking for a way to attack. These two seemed to have lost any semblance of humanity within them, nor would they realise that it might be a better idea to run away than keep fighting. She'd have to finish this.

One lunged at her, half-wild in her strike, which ended quickly as Danny’s claws grabbed the snout and ripped the lower jaw out of its socket and made the lycan crawl away in pain as she kept trying to snap and bite with a ruined mouth.

The final werewolf that faced her decided to turn tail and run away, but Danny wasn’t certain if he was running toward or away from Laura and Carmilla. She didn’t have time to debate it as adrenaline and her instinct pushed her to chase, to pin, and to tear his throat out with her teeth. It seemed so easy and right as the tendons gave way to her teeth and hot blood splashed onto her tongue. As the final lycan lay defeated, Danny rolled over and finally felt the pain she received at the start of the fight.

Something was wrong, she realized, when the wrong smell of them was now in her wounds and was starting to burn. She hadn’t touched silver since she was turned, but had wondered if this is what it would feel like.

The cold, wet floor of the sewer felt strange under her skin as Danny realized she had reverted to her human form. She had been told that this was a bad sign; that the beast inside might not be able to recover from the injuries sustained.

All Danny could do now was hope that her girlfriend Laura would find her in the sewer and get her some fresh meat to help her heal from whatever sickness was invading her blood.

* * *

It wasn’t long before the snarling sounds of fighting were heard and a lycan’s roar went through the tunnels, making Laura instantly want to run towards the fight while Carmilla held her back.

“No! We don’t know how many are there!”

“I can’t just abandon her!” Laura exclaimed, flinching as her earbud chirped to life.

“Laura! You down here?”

“Yeah LaF. There are werewolves down here, and Danny transformed to go deal with them…. She said they smelled wrong.”

A blur of something dark went by, followed by a rush of air displaced from Selene’s sprinting. LaFontaine soon followed, holding a flashlight and pistol out before them.

“Selene smelled it too, we just thought it was Danny and the sewer that stank.”

A rapid series of gunshots went off, and the three of them hurried down the tunnel, LaFontaine checking behind them frequently as Carmilla checked the side branches and kept up with Laura. By the time they got there, Selene and another man were pointing guns at each other’s faces as a human Danny was sprawled on the ground, naked and bleeding from what looked like a vicious bite mark.

“Why have you been following me?”

“I monitored the police frequencies.”

“You know what attacked Danny here?”

“Lycans. They've been hiding like rats since the purge. Some are diseased and starving; that they would attack another lycan is saying something. Just like seeing you trying to protect her now.”

“This lycan saved me.”

“You know of the Covenant, made between Viktor, Marcus, and Amelia! It is our duty to kill them on sight!”

“We can't leave her here.”

“Fine. The diseased lycans will come back in larger numbers, though. We need to leave.”

“She's not healing.”

“We have a doctor that can help her. In our coven.”

“How did you find me?”

“What's your name?”

“I am Selene, of _Viktor’s_ Coven. I know that the werewolves were once our daylight guardians before the Covenant!”     

“I have heard of you, Death Dealer. And I know of the human behind you.” The male replied, fangs out in warning.

Carmilla stood between him and Laura as LaFontaine went to tend to Danny. “Leave the creampuff out of this. Tell me who you are.”

“I’m David, of Thomas’ Coven.” Selene shrugged and Carmilla shook her head at that, muttering a quiet ‘sorry’. “We’re one of the _largest_ covens in the region!” David seemed almost petulant at that.

“Hey, if we’re not killing each other, we need to get Danny some medical attention.” LaFontaine interjected.

“My Coven has a safe house two miles from here.” David seemed apologetic. “But we’ll need transportation.”

“Grand theft auto? That’s my job. Here you go, Mistress Gimpsuit.” Carmilla handed the rifle to Selene, smoothed out her hair, and went up a nearby manhole.

* * *

Laura knelt by LaFontaine as they checked Danny’s vitals. The naked redhead had been coughing blood before they passed out, and LaFontaine noticed that the body was only at human body temperature instead of Lycan.

“What does that mean?”

“She’s not healing. It’s like her body doesn’t recognize it’s being infected.”

“What can we do?”

“I don’t know, I didn’t get into the Preternatural Biology class! If she were a vampire, I’d say to give her more blood. From what I know, lycans heal better when in their beast form, but she’s been so mortally wounded that-”

“Don’t say mortally wounded!” Laura exclaimed, tears running down her cheeks.

“Sorry, grievously wounded, that has made her lose her beast form.”

David holstered his weapon and picked her up in a fireman’s carry as Selene lead the way up to the street. LaFontaine did their best to comfort Laura as they followed their way up behind them, looking up into the night sky as they made their way out of the sewers.

Danny was handed off from David to Selene to make it through the manhole as a muffled moaning sound could be heard nearby. When Laura made it to the street level, she saw her ex pinning a blonde girl up against a van, her head between the girl’s legs, her skirt hiked up over the hip as Carmilla’s fangs were plunged deep into her inner thigh, one hand trying desperately to keep the moans of pleasure to a minimum as the vampire drank her fill.

It was as indecent as it was arousing to hear the human pant and moan what sounded like an orgasm into the night air as Carmilla pulled her mouth away and licked up the trail of blood that threatened to run down her leg.

“Thanks for the van, sweetie. You should call yourself a cab, okay?” Carmilla looked like herself again, pristine and not a day over 22 again as she licked the blood away from her lips.

The blonde girl nodded, drunk on endorphins as she pulled out her phone. “Can I… get your number?”

Carmilla shook her head coyly. “My dad doesn’t know I like girls. I’ll find you if you keep this little secret between us.”

Laura felt sick at the exchange there; she knew Carmilla needed blood to survive but had never been willing to offer her own when they were dating. She didn’t know how pleasurable it could have been, considering the one bite that happened was completely by surprise. The blonde girl wobbled away as David took the keys away from Carmilla and started the van.

Selene looked down with annoyance at her as she and LaFontaine helped secure the injured lycan inside.

“You know she could report us. You should have killed her and been done with it.” The Death Dealer chided.

Carmilla shrugged it off. “Hey, I’m a lover, not a fighter. Besides, you’re gifted with killing things. I’ve just got my seduction eyes and my special bite to get me by.”

“Special bite?” Laura couldn’t help but ask.

“Lilith’s Coven was known for their orgasmic bite. That’s why they were assigned to bait and feed humans to the Old Ones in order to keep them sleeping. Until _someone_ came along and ruined it with the Anglerfish in Silas.” Selene bit back.

Laura closed the door to the van as the six of them sped off into the night. As they made their way through the city, she reached a decision as pulled out her phone, held a flashlight under her chin, and hit record. The speed and the road conditions made it difficult to keep the phone on her face, but she did a decent job.

“Hey, so uh… I finally got a new phone and can record videos like this. We were able to save them, even though Carm instantly resumed her reign of terror and flirting by biting the first girl she could-”

“OH MY GOD ARE YOU REALLY VLOGGING THIS?” Carmilla interjected as Selene turned around to look at them from the front passenger seat.

“Laura! Now’s not the time-” LaFontaine interjected.

“I have a duty as a journalist to get the truth out there-”

“That’s what started all this in the first place, human!”

“I was thirsty and it was just one little bite, she’ll be fine by morning.” Carmilla said dismissively, “Or are you jealous because I never gave it to you that good?”

“Okay, Carmilla, now’s not the time to talk about our sex life…” Laura looked into her phone that was still recording her as a car violently crashed behind them, causing a bit of a pile-up to cast ominous shadows to bounce around on the road.

David noticed it as well as he hit the accelerator, making Laura drop the flashlight and stop the recording on her phone. “We’re being followed.”

Selene looked through the rear window of the van and made her way to the back seat. “LaFontaine, put that torch out!”

“Torch?”

“Flashlight, whatever!” Selene said as she got a better view and cursed silently. “Lycans, and these don’t look diseased.”

“How many?” LaFontaine asked, rooting through a backpack of equipment they procured from the last team of Antigen security.

“At least four, and we’re not going to outrun them.” LaF tossed her a magazine of the silver ammo and made their way to the front seat and lowered the window, a silver grenade in their hands.

Laura had an unconscious Danny next to her in the middle row of seats while Carmilla sat awkwardly next to her Death Dealer counterpart, who had her pistol trained on the blurring shadow that was creeping in on them.

“Two on starboard, one on port side, closing in!” Selene shouted as David took out his pistol and turned, shooting towards the lycan running on all fours towards them. It took four shots for the lycan to drop, only to get run over by a large delivery truck to finish the job.

“Hold on!” LaFontaine said, pin between their teeth as they released the spoon and was carefully counting the seconds with a live grenade in their hand before dropping the grenade out the window, yelling “DRIVE FASTER!”

David floored it as LaFontaine finished counting to themselves, now audibly.

“Four-Mississippi-Five!” An explosion went off behind them, showering the area with bright debris and what almost looked like fine glitter just about sixteen meters away, dropping two of the lycans who instantly inhaled the silver dust into their lungs.

“That’s three, you said four. Where’s the fourth?” Laura rambled in fear. “Do you see another lycan? Can we explain we’re not the bad guys?”

Carmilla’s fangs flashed as she tried to scent the air from the back seat. “Yeah, Daphne, we can just pull the Mystery Machine over and find out that it was just old man higgins all along, too.”

Something fell on to the roof of the van, making the shocks give way as the vehicle bottomed out for a moment. The windows were smashed in as the lycan reached in, attempting to slash the occupants with their claws.

LaFontaine pointed their pistol at the window as Laura ducked, their shot going wide as the lycan moved to the other side of the roof and began to rip the top away, large snout sniffing around and snapping at Danny.

“NO!” Laura screamed as gunshots came from behind her, Selene had leaned over the seat in order to fire so that the bullets’ trajectory didn’t accidentally hit LaFontaine in the front seat. The lycan had a half-dozen shots go through his neck and head before it went limp and Selene had to shove it off of the van, the audible thump as it hit the road being oddly comforting as it was truly dead now.

“The police probably are on their way, we need to ditch this vehicle.” Selene stated flatly, checking herself and Laura for any wounds.

“Okay, but I doubt I’ll get lucky and find us another van at three in the morning.” Carmilla replied, looking out the window and searching for targets, “We’re not even near any of the clubs anymore; are we even in Styria?”

David spoke up. “We’re almost there.” They were in the warehouse district and left the van a block away from what appeared to be an empty building, save for the thermal cameras that seemed almost inconspicuous there. As they made their way inside, David carried a now-bandaged Danny over his shoulders and handed Selene a round medallion and pointed to the manhole cover that was behind the building.

“It’s a key for a counterweight system. You have to-”

“-I know how these work.” Selene cut him off, surprised to see her father’s technology reproduced six centuries later. She put the key in place, pushed the button to lock it in place and release the counterweights, and then rotated it counter-clockwise as the manhole-sized opening rumbled and opened up.

“How did you know?”

“My human father invented it. Viktor decided it would be a better-kept secret if he were dead. I was, of course, told that Lycans killed them all.”

David lead them through the winding passages until it opened up into a massive receiving chamber, where an entire vampire coven lived underground with every luxury that could have been afforded in a small manor. “Get Olivia at once.”

An older vampire looked down at him regally. “It is not our problem. Why did you bring them here?”

“Father, she was injured trying to save these two vampires from Antigen.”

Selene looked at the man. “You must Thomas, the leader of this coven. You have my word that I will not harm your coven.”

He sneered at her malevolently. “Do you think I’m foolish enough to take you at your word? You, the vampire who fell in love with a _lycan_ and murdered two of our most powerful elders? At every turn, betrayed her own kind?”

Carmilla growled at that. “You know who she is?”

“Yes.” Thomas snapped, “Of course I do!”

“It was us who first betrayed her, father.” David replied, nodding at Olivia. “Let her through.”

Olivia knelt down and analyzed the unconscious body of Danny, carefully listening to LaFontaine’s record of her injuries and changes in vital signs.

“She’s not healing.” Olivia said as she cleaned the wounds and changed out the bandages, “The bite marks smell… wrong.”

“She was attacked by a lower lycan.” David added as an afterthought.

Laura’s pleading eyes met Selene’s. “You said your blood was dangerous. Could it save her, though?”

Selene shook her head at that. “It could very well kill her for all I know.” The way her eyes flicked between the aspiring reporter and her dying girlfriend told another story.

Laura caught the gaze and shook her head, kneeling next to LaFontaine. “I don’t care, she’s dying now. Anything is better than nothing.”

Carmilla witnessed the exchange and knew something was up, and kept her distance as the rest of the vampires looked at her in pity, trying to find the right words to say. Olivia was the closest who tried to put a comforting hand on Laura, who violently shrugged the supportive gesture away.

Selene frowned as she looked at Danny, laying motionless on the stone table. “Laura, I’m sorry, but-”

Before the vampires knew it, Laura had pulled out a pistol and a bottle of UV-modified bear spray from LaFontaine’s backpack. The tell-tale blue light from the slide told all of them that it had the UV rounds loaded in it.

“Selene. Save. Danny.” Laura’s voice was dry and completely without remorse.

“Wow, cupcake is going full Bonnie and Clyde here.” Carmilla said in soft wonder.

“Shutup, Carmilla! At least I’m doing something!” Laura shouted, “Better than being cold-hearted and sarcastic all the time!”

Carmilla flinched at the stinging words of her ex, frowning as she turned away. “My heart is not cold; it’s broken.”

Thomas witnessed the standoff and looked like he was about to attack them as LaFontaine held up a UV flashbang grenade, their finger ready to pull the pin.

“You really shouldn’t cross a mad scientist. Best that you do what Laura asks.”

“You really love her, don’t you?” Selene scoffed at that. “I can’t believe you mere humans got the drop on me.”

Carmilla chuckled approvingly. “They had me tied up and starving for over a week at one point. Never underestimate the tiny one.”

Selene nodded once, and LaFontaine lowered the grenade and handed her a blade from the backpack. “I don’t know exactly what this will do to her,” she warned as she slit her wrist, putting her wound over the redhead’s lips, “she might become another hybrid like Michael.”

Laura nodded, lowering her pistol. “Thank you.”

It only took a minute before Selene moved her wrist away from Danny’s mouth, which had begun suckling at the wound. “Danny, wake up.”

The redhead groaned, eyes opening up as black orbs and starlight. “I feel better.” She closed her eyes and nodded off.

Laura gasped in amazement. “Danny!”

LaFontaine frowned slightly. “She’s probably needs rest.”

Olivia bent back over, studying the massive bite mark on her shoulder. “She’s healing her wound… much faster than a vampire can, and she’s still in human form.”

David got up and faced his father. “She needs to rest; she can stay in my room. Olivia?” The medic nodded and helped carry Danny away. “Selene, we may have better weapons for you in our armory, may I take you there?” She nodded in agreement and those two vampires left, leaving Laura and Carmilla with the coven leader that they threatened to kill just moments before.

Thomas sneered in disgust at the humans. “We have been the predators and you have been the prey ever since the beginning.”

Laura looked back at him without any fear. “Things change, old man.”

Thomas turned to walk away from them. “On your own head, be it. Once your _lycan_ is well, you all can leave.”

Carmilla, however, had a hard time hiding the emotion in her face as she gazed at Laura. “Thank you for saving me.”

“Of course, it was the right thing to do.”

“It was the foolish, risky… Gryffindor thing to do.” Carmilla said dryly.

“Would I have done it any other way?”

Carmilla smiled sadly at that. “How long was I gone, before... you and Danny?”

“That’s not fair, Carm.”

“Was it a week? A month? Hell, it has barely even been six months!”

“You _dumped_ me before you disappeared!”

“You wanted me to _betray my own sister!_ ”

“I never stopped loving you!” Laura exclaimed. “Okay? You happy to hear that?”

Carmilla stood there, stunned at her pronouncement. “You never said that before. How was I supposed to know that you cared?”

“How can you say that? You think I rescued you after everything because I _don't_ care? Because the thought of you being experimented on and frozen, forced to subsist like that- and I don't know how I'm supposed to feel around you, or what I'm supposed to do because-”

As Laura shrugged at that, Carmilla leaned in and kissed her urgently, only to pull back slightly as she came to her senses.

Laura, however, reached out and clasped the vampire from behind her head and kissed her back with a fervor that she hadn’t felt in months. Lips parted and tongues fought for dominance, the kiss only breaking when Laura needed air.

Recomposing herself, Carmilla’s fingers went to her lips as if to savor the mistake that could never happen again. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have-”

“Carmilla-” Laura didn’t know what she was going to say. Did she want her back? Was the feeling mutual?

“No. You have Danny now.” She took a step away from her ex and nervously looked around. “I should go find, um, Selene.”

* * *

David stood before a display case of aged weaponry and armor, looking distant in thought as Selene stood by his side.

“Thank you for lending Danny your room.”

David turned to Selene and nodded. “Of course; it was the least I could do.”

“You could have refused us entry entirely.”

“That wouldn’t have done anybody any favors.” David sighed as he looked at an ancient, engraved Kukri. “I used to hear stories of the Death Dealers. That they were... things of the past, never to return. I'm glad they were wrong.”

Selene gave a flat smile at that. “You knew about me… and yet still brought me here. Thank you.”

“You're a fighter. We could use more like you to teach us.”

Selene made a small sound of disagreement. “I am not sure your father would agree.”

“There was a time when he would've.” David turned to face her, eyes alive with purpose. “That's why he dislikes you so much. I think it reminds him the days when he defended us with fire and steel, not hollow words. He knows how much we need you.”

“I'm not a leader.”

“But you fight for what you believe in. You always have.”

“I do not know what I believe in anymore. I don't recognize this world.”

“But you haven't changed. I saw it in your eyes when you protected the very human whose videos would make us extinct. And her lycan lover. You'll protect them. It's in your blood. It's who you are. When you leave, take me with you.”

* * *

Laura sat on the bed where Danny lay sleeping. Her wound was closed already and her temperature was finally rising to the lycan normal of 99.7 degrees. She felt eyes on her before hearing any movement at the door, and she was surprised to see Thomas there.

“You distrust me.” The vampire soothed, eyes raking her over like a butcher would inspect fresh meat on his slab.

“Of course I do.”

“I made you feel unwelcome,” Thomas’ hands were outstretched as if to say he meant no harm, but Laura knew better, “And for that I'm sorry, but… I know _exactly_ what you are.”


	3. Chapter 3

Carmilla sulked into the room, trying to not think about the lips that warmed her cool flesh moments ago. She would not pine over a mortal; particularly not that one.

“My father says that should we survive as species, that these relics will help our descendants know who we were and what we did.”

Selene looked over the weapons and frowned slightly. “And what do you say?”

“If we continue to live this way now, we disgrace the past and don't deserve the future. We must resist the humans. Wherever and whenever possible.”

Carmilla piped up. “All of the humans?”

David turned to face her. “No, just the ones who wish our extinction.”

The corner of Carmilla’s lip curled up slightly. “Good, because I plan on savoring a few.” Selene looked like she was going to reply when Thomas entered.

Thomas looked to the weapons, and then to his son. His lack of acknowledging Selene and Carmilla was calculated and significant.

“Between the first and second purges, the lycan youth rallied in the same way, against the prudence of the elders. Their calls of violent action carried the day. The result… the werewolves are nearly extinct. Is that what you wish for us? Extinction? Yet, you bring this human, her vampire ex-lover, and her pet lycan into our home. Do you honestly believe that the humans will allow them to remain free? They will hunt her down at any expense.”

“Then we can help protect them!” David exclaimed.

“Protect them? They leave tonight.” Thomas’ voice spoke with a finality that made him confident that his word would be law. LaFontaine poked their head into the room, feeling somewhat relieved as they saw Carmilla.

David, however, refused to concede. “This is not prudence. This is cowardice, plain and simple.”

“How dare you!” Thomas fumed, furious eyes leveled at his son.

“How dare you? Thinking so little of the future.” David knew he was right and that they couldn’t keep living in hiding and reminisce on the old glory days when they once were a mighty people.

“Do you question my authority in the Coven?”

Carmilla quickly opened the cabinet and pulled out a hardened leather corset, once used like armor before the celtic invention of chainmail in 300 BC. “Hey, do you have any of these relics in a size four? Maybe one of those shiny neoprene catsuits?”

LaFontaine understood the need for distraction as soon as Carmilla caused it. “Are you trying to look like her?”

She shrugged at that question. “What? I like shiny.”

LaFontaine’s phone vibrated in their pocket.They were morbidly curious as to how it got any reception down here. LaF grinned as they saw a message from JP.

“Hey, JP reset! He-”

_‘Did you check them for GPS tags?’_

LaF’s thoughts from earlier in the day came back to haunt them. _They wished they had the forethought to put a GPS locator on Laura._

“GPS tags? Oh. Shit.”

Selene’s eyes meet LaFontaine’s as she reads the message on the phone. Instinctively, Selene pulls back her hair and pokes around at the back of her neck, confirming a strange sensation she had noticed earlier. Selene grabs a medical scalpel from LaF and jabs it into the back of her neck, rooting around and extracting the foreign object embedded in her skin.

Carmilla understood what was going on as she panicked and tried finding hers as well without any result.

“LaF? I can’t feel any tag in me, do you think they put it elsewhere?” Carmilla said in a rush as panic threatened to overtake her.

“Yeah, probably. I have a theory on how to disable it though. Selene, you got yours out?” LaF asked as they checked their pockets for something.

“You do? Okay, good, what do you have to- AAAAHHHH!” Carmilla screamed in pain as the loud crackle of electricity went through her as LaFontaine had the taser on the highest setting. “ **YOU FUCKING SADIST!** ”

LaFontaine shrugged. “You’d have said no if I asked. Now the chip is fried.”

Carmilla looked at them with rage. “I ought to-”

Selene restrained Carmilla as she looked to David. “Antigen is probably on their way. Carmilla, save your rage for the humans coming to hunt us.”

Thomas took charge of his coven as he began barking orders. “Everyone into the shelter! Now!”

David walked around him and countermanded his father. “Prepare the armory.”

One of the scared vampires looked between David and Thomas, uncertain who to obey.

David grabbed the vampire’s arm in an urgent but reassuring manner. “Do as I say. Go!” Nodding, the vampire scurried off to the armory to get a weapon.

Thomas sneered as his son’s nerve. “Pay heed to me!”

David faced off the coven leader as Carmilla began looting the display case for gear, smirking at the armored leather corset.

“No, father! We stand and we fight!”

“No!”

“We’re not safe!”

“Stop this, now! We lived in safety here for years, and now you brought humans to this coven!”

“They want vampires to experiment on, and they will stop at nothing to get her back.”

Selene stepped between them and stared down Thomas. “This day was bound to come, even without us.”

David strengthened his resolve. “Let's move! Munitions depot. Everyone!”

Thomas scoffed at that, gesturing down the hallway where the vampires were heading down to get their weapons. “Are you mad? We have no more a _handful_ of fighters. _We'll be annihilated_.”

“And what's your plan, Father? More hiding?”

Carmilla was now in the same Death Dealer outfit as Selene as she tested the weight of the sword in her hands. “You know that the Keep won’t protect you forever, Théoden.”

LaFontaine smiled at the reference as they gave Carmilla the backpack of weapons while the vampires looked at them in confusion. “What? Lord of the Rings!”

David shrugged it off. “Let's go! Now!”

Selene turned in the opposite direction, confusing David.

“Selene, where are you going?”

The Death Dealer held up the GPS tag. “To draw them away from here. Your father is right. We shouldn't have come.”

“He doesn't understand-”

“The humans will follow this out. It might buy you all some time, if not have them miss you altogether.”

David grimaced at that, but knew she had a point. He handed her his phone. “Here, take this. You don’t have to go at this alone.”

LaFontaine nodded in agreement. “Laura, Danny, and I all have burn phones and we’ll stay in touch, okay? We need to get Danny back to Raze, anyways.”

David huffed in surprise at that name. “Lycans and Vampires, allied together?”

Gunshots were heard in the distance, signaling that the defensive perimeter had been breached.

* * *

Laura cringed as she slapped her girlfriend awake, glad that the redhead caught her hand in mid-air before the third strike.

“What the hell?” Danny asked, getting cut off with a kiss.

“Good. You’re awake and... not dead.”

“...okay…” Danny looked under the sheets where she lay. “I’m naked.”

“Yeah, I know. You shifted into your wolf form, got injured, turned back into a human. I grabbed you some clothes. We have to go, Antigen is here. There’s a type of panic room that the vampires are going into, come on.”

“Wait, what?!” Danny exclaimed as the muffled sound of automatic gunfire could be heard.

“They microchipped the vamps and Selene is making a run for it to draw their fire.”

“Okay, what about Carmilla?” Danny asked, getting out of bed and pulling on the black leather pants and black crew-neck shirt.

“Oh, LaFontaine apparently tasered her real good and fried it.”

“Damn, wish I got to see that.” Danny found the combat boots and was surprised to see that they fit her. “Thanks for the clothes.”

“Thank David; apparently the vamps down here knocked over an army surplus store months ago in order to stock up on supplies. Did you know that the humans are now selling werewolf and vampire teeth as trinkets? I thought we evolved past buying scalps.”

The pair of them made their way out of David’s room and Laura lead them down into the armory where they ran into LaFontaine, who was getting a better rifle for themselves when the upstairs gun fight ceased. Laura paused and turned, hoping to hear an all clear.

Instead, pandemonium broke out.

_“Lycans!”_

_“Silver ammunition, now! Protect the rotunda!”_

_“Move! Move!”_

Danny’s hands were on Laura’s back, urging her forward. “We need to go.” She sniffed the air and it raised her hackles, making a primal growl escape from her throat.

“What the hell was that?” Laura asked.

“This is not my pack! I need to get to Lucian and Raze! Laura, get to the shelter!”

* * *

There was a scream as David and Carmilla fired at something that moved too fast to see. Even with the muzzle flashes from the guns, Danny couldn't see the Lycan, but the pain-filled screams from the vampires told them that some were here. Laura and LaFontaine were retreating to the shelter, guns at the ready, both searching for a target to shoot.

“Where is it?”

“Where the hell did it go?”

Danny’s senses were hyper-aware, as if she could see in the dark, and could trace the scent like a ribbon of musky air begging to be chased. It was almost overpowering as she was still in her human form and had to shut down her primal urges as she knew this lycan was here to kill her friends.

She felt movement in the dark before someone yelled, ‘There!’ The vampire was ripped apart as the head flew off of the body and was stuck in an expression of horror.

Thomas yelled, 'Retreat! Get to the shelter!' Once they were inside they could wait the lycans out. Danny retreated backward in order to give the humans some cover as they made their way down as Carmilla sprayed her M16A4 into a dark shape in the distance and killed a lycan.

David expended the magazine in his Heckler & Koch G36 before dropping it and letting the sling hold it near his body as he switched over to his pistol-grip Mossberg 500 Cruiser, working the pump-action as a lycan bounded towards him, getting pelted with silver buckshot at over twelve hundred feet per second. Two shots went into the lycan before it actually died, leaving David’s right side exposed as an even larger lycan dropped from above, teeth tearing into the vampire’s neck and wrenching him apart, bones snapping and breaking under the strength of the lycan’s jaw.

Carmilla switched magazines as she had to aim around David in order to hit the larger werewolf, panic flooding into her as the bullets went through the massive lycan’s chest but didn’t seem to stop him.

“Oh, crap.” Carmilla kept shooting into the lycan as she idly wondered if she accidentally had standard lead and copper bullets in this clip and wound up dropping the gun as she unsheathed the hand-and-a-half sword from her back.

“DANNY!” Carmilla’s fangs elongated as she growled, holding the sword hilt near her hip in the second position. It had been over two centuries since she had to use her longsword training and it felt rusty to her; even the Blade of Hastur was only a single-handed sword and she could have wielded that like a rapier.

The large lycan growled as it sniffed the air, bounding forward with sweep of its claws to eviscerate her bowels. Carmilla stepped into the strike, swinging the sword into the arm and cutting deep into the flesh. She let out a grunt of victory as the arm fell back, bleeding onto the floor and didn’t see the other arm slam into her head and bash it against the underground rock wall, rendering her unconscious.

* * *

LaFontaine trusted Laura at their six as they pulled a pin and threw out a silver grenade into the room before them, making a last stand to protect the shelter as Laura got Thomas to open the door to allow them in as well.

LaF had their skills down from years of shooter video games, shuffling with that awkward, bent-legged walk that kept the sights at the same level. Every fraction of a degree they were off by could mean life or death against a creature that was so much larger and faster than they were. The grenade went off perfectly, showering the room with fine silver particulate that kept the lycans back as they stared the scientist down, unable to cross.

They opened fire from the Styr AUG, letting silver ammo fly across the room and hit the lycan in the chest. It was like the creature didn’t think that the human could or would make the shot. The other lycans moved around a bit, unable to cross but not wanting to make themselves an easy target. The snarling continued as they continued their stand-off. The silver wasn’t going to remain in the air forever and LaFontaine knew that they would have to change magazines soon, and they weren’t certain they could take out all of the lycans before getting torn open.

“Come on, you stupid vampire!” Laura screamed, pounding on the door to be let in. LaFontaine did the math quickly and decided to switch magazines now while they still had an advantage, and took a shot at a lycan who underestimated LaF’s reload speed. Three rounds of silver went through his head, killing him instantly.

“Who is next? HUH?” LaF yelled, adrenaline flooding through their system.

Laura was back at their side, her own Beretta M12 at the ready. “Cowards!” The two humans were side-by-side, the last line of defense between the lycans and the vampires that went to ground, pulses racing as the gunfire ceased from the other side of the room. A loud roar went through the underground installation, and the remaining werewolves turned as one, and left.

“They wouldn’t just leave.” Laura mused out loud, trying to ignore the creeping sensation of dread.

“The rest of the vampires that put up a fight must be dead.” LaF said coldly, “At least Selene got away… maybe Carm, too…”

Laura shook her head, unwilling to face that possibility. “No, she’s fine… has to be…”

“We thought humans from Antigen were coming, not lycans. They would have wanted their test subjects back, right? How the hell did these wolves show up then?”

Laura took a breath to steel her nerves. “They were working together. Raze was Danny’s contact, and he’s a werewolf, right? Why would they go through the trouble to free Selene and Carmilla just to kill them?” The silver dust in the air was a lot thinner now that a lot of it had settled, and the pair of them cautiously made their way back up through the underground tunnels of the vampire lair.

Body after body was torn open or shot to pieces, depending on which species they were. It was an absolute slaughter as the vampires were caught unaware and had the wrong kind of ammunition at first. It wasn’t until she saw a pleather-clad woman sprawled on the floor that made the ground drop out from under her feet.

“Holy shit, they killed Selene.” Laura knew that if the Death Dealer had fallen, that her ex couldn't have fared any better.

LaFontaine shook their head. “No, the hair is too long. That’s Carmilla.”

Laura ran over and dropped to her knees, sobbing uncontrollably. “Oh my god Carm I can’t lose you again!” She felt hysterical as she held the cool body to her chest, brushing the hair out of her face. “Please don’t be dead, I don’t think I can handle the stages of grief again…”

Carmilla’s raspy voice was barely audible as her face was heavily bruised, swelling her jaw to the point where it nearly felt dislocated. “Not dead, Creampuff.”

“Oh LaF! There’s the denial stage; I swear I can still hear her voice!” Laura shrieked, rocking the now-squirming body of Carmilla as the vampire tried to get free.

“Laura! She was just knocked out.”

“What? Omygodohmygod Carm!”

“Pain.” Carmilla rasped, slowly rolling away from her vice-like grip.

Laura understood finally and let the vampire go as she winced herself into an upright position. “Sorry, I just thought-”

“How is David?” Carm asked as LaFontaine checked their vitals.

“Slipping; he’s burning up, and the bite wound isn’t healing. It’s like the lycan virus is trying to kill him on a cellular level.”

Laura looked at the other vampire in shock. “Can’t you do something, maybe a tourniquet?”

“Not around the neck, that would just kill him faster.” LaFontaine said sadly. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what else I can do.”

Laura held Carmilla’s hand in her own as she scanned the rest of the room.

“Where is Danny?”

* * *

Detective Sebastian and his partner were given the expected run-around as they were investigating a report of gunfire and a rogue lycan killing roaming the streets late last night and he wasn’t having it. After a few idle threats to have a SWAT team come in and sweep the area (just in case one was hiding in an air vent or something) the person in charge, Dr. Jacob Lane, finally came down to talk to him.

“Apologies for making you wait, officer-”

“-That’s Detective Sebastian, Dr. Lane.”

“-Yes, Detective, I was in a conference call with Baron Vordenberg from Styria.”

The Detective nodded, keeping his blank cop face on. “Silas University, right?”

The Doctor smiled politely. “Yes, and he talks my ear off. Even after they culled the student body due to the infectious hysteria, I swear that man has a screw loose.” The time just before the Cleansing was madness; too many people had died in the ensuing panic.

“We’re here because there was a sighting of a lycan last night and gunshots were heard. We expected a report from Antigen if something got out.”

“You didn’t get one because the situation is under control.”

“Okay, what happened?”

“I repeat, everything is under control.” Dr. Lane reiterated.

The detective kept his voice even. “I repeat, what happened?”

“Ah, yes. You have a report to be filed.”

“That’s what we’re here for. ‘To Protect and to do Paperwork’.”

Dr. Lane ignored the Detective’s dry wit. “Well, one of Antigen's test subjects attempted to escape, we were forced to put it down.”

“So nothing's gone out?”

“Only a stray bullet or two.”

“And the test subject?”

“Flash burned, as procedure states. Will this be all? Few things to attend to, as you can imagine.”

“Doctor, we've received an anonymous call as something actually escaped through a window-”

“-Detective, our mission here at Antigen, is to find ways to prevent the infection, not to release it over the general population. I lost my son due to this disease. There is no room for error with me

when it comes to safety of the public. If something had escaped, authorities will be notified. You are an authority, are you not? Now, if you'll excuse me.” Dr. Lane walked away and had security escort the dark-skinned Detective out of the building, where his partner was waiting in the passenger seat of their vehicle.

The Detective got into the passenger’s seat as his partner started the engine and pulled away from the research compound.

“The guy in charge said nothing.”

“Yeah, that’s bullshit. Look at this.” He handed over his phone to Det. Sebastian. “I know it’s a grainy ATM camera, but something definitely happened last night.”

A tall redhead in military-esque garb was leading two girls into the sewer via a manhole just outside of Antigen. One of the girls looked awfully familiar to him, as if he’d seen her face before but couldn’t place it.

* * *

It was sunrise, and Selene had ran throughout the night, flushing the GPS tag once she was far enough away from Thomas’ Coven. She had broken into a military surplus store and raided the beef jerky and picked out an ankle length pea coat in order to look less conspicuous. Ever since she drank Alexander Corvinus’ blood, she was able to sustain herself on food once again. She only hoped to have the time to properly enjoy some.

Selene was standing on top of one of the nearby buildings as she staked out Antigen Labs to see if there was a link between the human company and the lycans.

“Are you so willing to go back into that lion’s den?” Selene turned in shock, guns pointed at a werewolf she had once thought was dead.

“Lucian!” She saw his hands were raised and did not pose a threat to her, and she decided to take a chance and lower her own guns. Momentarily. “Aren’t you supposed to be dead?”

“Aren’t you supposed to be dying from the sunlight?” He said, smirking. “Your zeal is so much like Sonja.” His lips fell at the mention of her name. “Sorry about Michael.”

“I’m not ready to believe he’s dead if you’re still alive.” She said, mind making quick mental leaps of logic. “You’re immune to silver, aren’t you?”

Lucian had a wolfish grin. “Alexander Corvinus wanted to start a new Covenant, and needed leaders from both sides to come together in order to do this.”

Selene pondered that. “That’s what he meant by the last of his legacy.”

“You were the last he shared his blood with, in hopes to have the vampires and the lycans find peace. But we need that more now than ever since the Cleansing.”

“There were lycans working in Antigen.”

“I know, that’s why Raze had Danny Lawrence in there, to get answers. I can assure you, they weren’t part of my pack.”

“What did they want with me?”

“Far as I can tell, they wanted your blood to make a vaccine against silver. It would imbalance the already precarious situation we are in.”

“Any idea whose pack is behind this?”

Lucian shook his head. “After your kind hunted us down for centuries? We kept to ourselves for safety. Even kept away from our own kind so as to avoid detection.”

“We need to take down Antigen and find the lycans that are working with them.”

“Agreed.” Lucian looked down at the laboratory complex as well. “Now, where’s the lycan girl?”

"Safe with a local vampire coven."

"She was supposed to check in already."

Selene took out David's phone and found messages from Olivia explaining that David and a dozen vampires died during the lycan raid, and that Danny had gone missing.

“Lucian, we have a big problem.”

* * *

Laura found herself on morgue detail, stripping the dead of any valuables before having the bodies incinerated to ash. Nothing got wasted, it seems, but what were they going to do, get daytime jobs?

“How do you lot make ends meet?” She asked Olivia as they had moved on to field-stripping the weapons and servicing them.

“Old-world money, investments, and we used to run some of the less-savory businesses.” Laura gave her a look. “What? We’re blood-suckers.”

She shrugged at that. “I guess I just thought vampires live long enough to outgrow petty human issues and squabbles. That you lot would make amazing art and literature because you have all the time in the world to perfect your craft.”

Olivia shrugged at that. “If anything, we get more petty. Fighting over the smallest perceived insults and slights. Mortality is a gift; it makes you realize how precious time is and you don’t squander it. When you have an eternity, you’re more willing to commit actions you would otherwise regret.”

The coven leader Thomas came by to inspect the progress. “Why are you still here, human?”

“Helping with the cleanup, obviously. LaFontaine and I held the line for your sorry ass when the lycans came, even after you refused to grant us access to your panic room!”

“I could kill you where you stand.” Thomas spat.

“Lilith had her entire coven gunning for me, so don’t think for a second you’re intimidating.”

“You dare challenge me?”

“Yes. I dare. David fought and died for what he believed in, which is more than can be said about you.”

Olivia turned to face her coven leader. “He was right; the lycans or the humans would have come for us eventually.”

Thomas grimaced at Laura. “Stay as long as you’re useful for all I care.”

* * *

LaFontaine hooked the hard drive up to a computer in the vampire coven and began to access the files when a notification popped up on the screen.

_‘You didn’t think I would abandon you at this juncture, did you?’_

They looked at their phone and back at the monitor. They quickly typed in ‘JP?’

_‘Greetings! I decided to transfer myself over onto this hard drive, just in case.’_

They laughed, eyes tearing up a bit. ‘Good to hear from you buddy. You know I have 1.5 on my phone, right?’

_‘That one glitches too much; it can’t do what I can, and you know it. Why can I not detect it?’_

‘No wi-fi down here; we’re in an underground vampire coven.’

_‘Blast. What happened to our clean getaway?’_

‘They found our van and wired it. It was the last thing the other JP 1.0 told me before they found and wiped him.’

_‘Well done, then. So, I’ve been looking over Antigen’s research, and they aren’t making a vaccine to keep humans from being turned.’_

‘They are trying to make lycans immune to silver?’ They realized that was why the lycans needed Selene’s blood… and now they have Danny. Fuck.

_‘How did you know?’_

‘We ran into lycan security there; so it was an educated guess. There were also GPS tags in both Selene and Carmilla, and we got attacked by lycans here instead of by human Antigen security guards.’

_‘Well let’s get me back onto a wi-fi signal so I can hook into your earbud rather than tie you down to a monitor and keyboard.’_

‘Better idea. Project Lazarus.’

* * *

Selene informed Lucian about Danny, who went back to organize a rescue mission with his pack. She decided against calling the coven for reinforcements since they had probably been decimated, and really wanted to keep the pesky humans out of it.

It was when she noticed a tall, dark-skinned human staking out Antigen that she got curious and decided to follow him. She kept her distance until he was in a drive-through picking up some food when she helped herself into his passenger seat. He tried to reach for his pistol, but she had his elbow in a vice-like grip which stopped him.

“Let’s have a polite chat, shall we?” Selene smiled and showed just a bit of fang, which made the man more curious than panic.

“You’ve been following me?” He said, eyes flicking up to see that the sun was indeed out.

“Hi, I’m Selene. What’s your name?” The vampire said crisply as she took in the notes on his dashboard.

“I’m um, Detective Sebastian Valentine.”

“You’re staking out Antigen. Why?”

“There was a report of gunfire and a possible escape. When I went to investigate, the guy in charge there lied through his teeth to me. Know anything about it?”

“What do you know about the diseased lycans that are living in the sewers?”

“Nothing. We haven’t run into any.”

“They are scurrying around like plague rats, and I’d bet Antigen is behind it.”

Detective Sebastian shrugged. “Maybe they have always been there since the purges began.”

The attendant at the drive through poked his head out towards the vehicle. “Here you go, a number three with extra pickles and an orange juice.” The Detective had to grab his food as Selene let go of his arm, leaning back into the passenger car seat and silently unholstered her Beretta 92FS and held it behind her pea coat.

The detective put the bag of food between them, realized that she had him at gunpoint, and frowned as he drove his car into the street.

“So do you want me to drop you off anywhere?” He mused dryly.

The Death Dealer cocked her head as she realized something. “You're not surprised to hear that the Lycans aren’t extinct. How come?”

“Just a feeling.”

“ _I'm not good with feelings_. I want to know how.”

“This is not the time or place for this. And you're not gonna kill me.”

“Really?” Selene asked, pulling the Beretta out from behind her jacket and kept it trained on him.

“No, because you wouldn't need a fucking gun to do it.”

He stopped at a red light and the two of them stared silently at each other. He sighed and looked away first.

“Look, two months ago, the government declared mission accomplished concerning Lycans. They announced that we would only focus on your kind now.”

“Go on.” Selene lowered her pistol, which didn’t seem to faze him at all.

“A week ago, a friend of mine sent me this. Apparently hanged himself the same day, too. Over three dozen suspected lycans were captured, each one was investigated, but all the blood tests came back negative. So he had to wonder if the blood tests were wrong, or if someone was trying to protect the lycans.”

“Helping them repopulate the packs, letting them regroup.”

“So either the government is protecting the lycans…”

“Or the lycans are cheating the tests.”

The Detective nodded as he pulled into a parking lot and began to munch on his fries.

“How is it you actually able to survive in the sunlight?”

“It was a gift from a man named Alexander Corvinus. You don’t seem afraid of me.”

“I used to be involved with a vampire. Nobody knew about her condition. We lived like that for awhile. And then came the purge. SWAT conducted mandatory door to door testing… She told me she loved me and... that love will have its sacrifices…”

“I’m sorry.”

“Haven’t heard from Mattie lately; I think she was looking to unite the remaining coven leaders to try and get the vampires to escape all this.”

“I’m going to break into Antigen; I need to rescue the girl who rescued me before they kill her and use her blood to make the lycans immune to silver.”

“Let me guess, the tall redhead?”

“Another feeling?” Selene replied bitterly. She did not like being left in the dark.

“That makes Carmilla Karnstein and Laura Hollis the other girls in the ATM photo from across the way. Let me know what you need.”

 


	4. Chapter 4

Laura had her cell phone out and resting on the table before her as LaFontaine was in the background, checking on the IV link between Carmilla and David’s lifeless body. The bite wound had been bandaged and sealed with superglue, and the scientist had drained the deceased vampire of the poisoned blood.

“LaF? What if I get light-headed from a lack of my blood in my body?” Carmilla asked as Laura sighed and continued her narration.

“Carm, you’re already undead. You can’t die from a lack of blood.” LaFontaine replied, handing them a blood bag anyways. “Drink up if you want, though.” Carmilla happily took the blood bag as she was laying on the cold slab and bit the nozzle end and sucked it up like a straw.

“So Danny has been kidnapped by lycans, but it wasn’t her own pack. Selene is talking to them now in order to mount a rescue mission. Meanwhile here, Thomas’ coven suffered major casualties and LaF here thinks they can frankenstein JP into a new vampire body.”

“This is STILL super creepy!” Carmilla exclaimed petulantly.

“It’s not creepy, it’s science!” LaFontaine replied, checking for any vital signs concerning David. “Wish I could hard-wire a CPU and memory into the nervous system for a quicker transfer.”

“Does Thomas know you’re doing this with his son’s remains?”

“No, he just ordered them all to be incinerated, so, free body!” LaFontaine shrugged. “Besides, the rest of them were torn apart, so this was the best candidate.”

Laura turned away from her recording camera and looked to her ex girlfriend. “How did they talk you into this?”

“I gave up on trying to make sense of this the first time when they did this with Will.”

LaFontaine went back to their computer and pulled the USB thumb drive from its port and plugged it into their taser, cranking it up to the highest setting and preparing the electrodes to zap the dead vampire directly into the skull.

“Okay, let me unhook Carmilla from the body here, and make sure it’s grounded… **CLEAR!** ”

* * *

Baron Vordenberg was pacing as he waited for Dr. Lane to arrive in his office at Antigen labs. Their agreement had just fallen apart; Antigen was to keep Carmilla Karnstein on ice so that they could extract and isolate the anti-aging properties in her blood in exchange for the blood and the remains of the Anglerfish.

As Doctor Lane entered, the Baron exploded at him. “Do you have any idea what you have lost me?! I’ve been on this earth for over three hundred years, living off of the blood of vampires that I hunted and staked to have my revenge!”

Dr. Lane’s eyes narrowed in frustration. “Rest easy, Baron. As fortune would have it, we have captured ourselves a lycan whose blood can be traced back to the Source! Immune to silver, sunlight, and time!”

“You lost me. MY. CARMILLA!” The Baron seethed. “Do you even have a team out there looking for her?”

“Prepare the lycan for dissection!” Dr. Lane ordered on his intercom as Wilson Kirsch barged in.

“Dr. Lane, is it true? Danny Lawrence assisted with the break out?” Wilson’s face was white with shock.

“Of course Danny helped,” Vordenberg sneered, “she’s in cahoots with that Laura Hollis.”

Doctor Lane huffed in exasperation. “Your friend was a lycan all this time, right under our noses.”

“Well, you can’t do this to her! Wasn’t the vampire Selene was essential to our research?”

“Yes, as Danny will continue to be.”

Kirsch looked like he had his heart torn out at that. “HOW?! By _dissecting_ her?”

The doctor frowned. “You... weren't meant to hear that.”

The Baron nodded. “He’s heard too much.”

Kirsch looked puzzled at the two men. “But that's D-Bear! You can’t expect a bro to sit by while you-”

Doctor Lane cut him off “-Harvest its genetic material. Yes. She will be saving _thousands_ of lives.”

The Zeta backed away, head jerking slightly at that. “Thousands? What are you talking about?”

“An entire species saved from extinction.” As the doctor approached Kirsch, his eyes started to lose their human color as the amber of wolf eyes took over. His hands, now partly transformed into werewolf claws, seized him by the neck and lifted him off of the ground.

The last thing the Zeta did was a futile attempt to pull the hands off of his neck as his windpipe was crushed and the claws sliced into the neck, making him bleed out quickly as the lycan let go of him and let the limp body crash onto the ground. Jacob’s son Quint came in soon after and stepped over the dead body, handing him the report on his bloodwork.

“Good, good. I am proud of you, son. Your nose was right; she does have Selene’s blood in her now. Everything's working out better than we'd hoped. I even injected myself with the serum and have done partial transformations!”

Quint had a wolfish grin at that. “Now that we have a turned lycan, we have a better compatibility for what we need. Imagine, our species not only immune to silver, but increased strength! Instant healing! _No more hiding._ Every Lycan in your command as powerful as I am.”

Baron Vordenberg nodded in salutation towards Quint. “And we’ll eradicate the world of vampires.”

“They stand no chance against us now; even other lycan packs will pay fealty to me for immunity to silver.” Doctor Lane replied flippantly.

“I only wish mother were here to see it.” Quint mused quietly.

“Your mother chose to remain human. _She abandoned us_. Remember that.”

“Of course, dad.”

* * *

Erika had Danny’s layout of Antigen spread out on the operations board as she disseminated the various entry points to Raze’s and Lucian’s teams. She had once been nothing more than an underestimated pretty face who was Machiavellian with the game of cat’s paws that ran rampant under Amelia’s reign. Then Amelia was executed by the lycans under a deal between Kraven and Lucian, and she now found herself working with that very lycan to establish the peace that Kraven had once wanted.

Selene, of course, had been loyal to Viktor and had thrown a wrench in the plans by awakening him instead of Marcus. She loved the combat and the bloodshed, and saw vampires like herself as a weakness. So it wasn’t surprising to see the Death Dealer’s fury as she came in and found herself taking orders from her as the chief tactician.

“What is she doing here?” Selene snapped, fangs extending as a warning.

Erika’s latest lover, Tanis, turned to face Selene in order to diffuse the situation. “She’s brilliant at organizing schemes and it translates well into battle plans, love.”

“TANIS?! You survived Marcus as well?”

He smirked at that. “Alexander Corvinus shared his legacy with me as well. Seems that _someone_ understood the importance of preserving history. Make sure that the children know the truth of what happened, rather than _lock it away in exile_.”

Selene frowned at that. “I was following orders; Viktor told me that you had betrayed your own kind but that he would spare you your life.”

Tanis sneered in response. “Yes, and you know how well mindlessly ‘following orders’ does for-”

Raze let out a loud lycan roar, cutting off the bickering instantly. Lucian gave a clipped smile.

“Thank you, Raze.” The elder lycan said, in the way where he didn’t raise his voice yet could be heard by all, “We have a compound to storm with multiple objectives, and not enough teams to ensure proper coverage. Selene, tell me that Thomas is willing to contribute some vampires to this cause.”

“He lost his son and was against taking up arms in the first place. I can go at this alone.” Selene muttered.

“You going it alone is what got Michael killed and you captured in the first place!” Erika sniped back, biting her tongue soon after.

Lucian pursed his lips as the jab hit home with the Death Dealer. He continued cooly, “You didn’t break out of Antigen alone; it would behoove you to remember that.”

Selene sighed resignedly as her phone vibrated to alert her of a waiting message. As she read it, she flicked her eyes back up to Erika’s map of the compound. “Alright, looks like I have my own team after all. We’ll lead the primary strike while your teams slip in after I create a diversion.”

* * *

Less than an hour later, and they found themselves in position. Selene had earbuds for all of the team leaders, as well as for Detective Valentine, LaFontaine, and JP 2.5. It was unnerving to see David’s body reanimated with someone else in control of it, but she was assured by LaFontaine that Armitage was the good sort of non-corporeal, sentient entity that once was a mortal being.

Selene even had to have LaFontaine explain exactly who “Captain Harkness” was as Laura exploded in a fit of giggles as she saw the pea coat she wore to look more inconspicuous to the mortal world.

Carmilla was now wearing the female Death Dealer uniform, and admiring the boots that went with it. She looked over her shoulder to see the back of her corset and rolled her shoulders. “It really could use a cape, though.”

Laura, LaFontaine, and Selene all rolled their eyes at the comment. “NO CAPES!” They said in unison.

Carmilla huffed in resignation at that. “Fine. Still think it would look pretty awesome,” she muttered, fiddling with the Beretta 92FS in her drop leg holster. It was attached to the bottom utility clip on her corset, which she found an interesting alternative to the cumbersome MOLLE webbing technology as she had spare clips of ammo clipped to her back on all three utility clips that went around her side and back. She even had a single-handed sword and scabbard attached to the back of the corset for a right-hand draw. Carmilla smirked as she noticed that Laura kept trying to sneak a glance at her.

It was hours before sundown, so JP 2.5 and Carmilla each had to wear a blanket over their heads in the van as they parked across the street from Antigen Labs, the doors opening for Detective Valentine and Selene to exit. As a uniformed police officer since the Cleansing, the detective was allowed to openly carry whatever firearm he felt necessary to do his job. Rather than intimidate with the Sage Control Ordnance Deuce Revolution and its double barrel approach to launching gas canisters (that usually carried a mix of silver and UV ordinance rather than simply tear gas for humans anymore), he went with his holstered Taurus Judge, a five-round revolver that shot .410 bore shotgun shells. All with silver shot specifically for killing lycans.

“LaFontaine, drive up when you get the signal.” Selene said through the earpiece as she and Detective Valentine made their way up to Antigen Labs.

LaFontaine handed Laura a paper sack while in the van. “Happy Birthday, frosh.”

Laura looked at them in confusion as she pulled out a backpack that looked like Captain America’s shield with a matching vest. She knew it was a bit heavier than an empty backpack should be, and put two and two together when LaFontaine was putting on their own bulletproof vest.

“HOW DID YOU-?” Her eyes were wide like it was christmas.

“You wouldn’t fit the adult sizes, and it was this or Spongebob. And besides, I know your love for Peggy Carter.” They shrugged, helping her into it. “And you can carry some of the grenades and your own spare magazines.”

LaFontaine grinned at their friend as they made their way to the driver’s seat. “Okay, now we just have to wait for the signal.”

Laura zipped up the vest and added equipment into the backpack as she tested the weight. “Okay, I think I can handle this.” She looked back down at her “VERIFIED HUMAN” plastic bracelet, confirmed just a month ago by Antigen and remembered back when she thought back to when life was simple; when her roommate was missing and that Carmilla was a vampire and therefore the bad guy. Now she understood that humans didn’t always mean ‘good guys’ and monsters were the ‘bad guys’ as she had killed an Alchemy Club member she had known not even eight months ago.

* * *

Detective Valentine had his badge out as he entered and approached the front desk of Antigen Labs, loudly stating that he needed the records of official status of the employees there. Naturally, the security guard had their arms raised in order to try and calm down the detective as Selene ran past the security cameras and broke her way past the elevator service door.

“Shit! It’s her!”

“In daylight?!”

“Hit the alarm!”

As the guard reached for the button, Detective Valentine pulled his Judge out and had silver slugs going straight into the man’s heart. He didn’t take the time to notice if the body reacted to the silver or not as he saw the other two guards pull out their own guns. Both of them got shot straight in the head, killing all three instantly.

He moved around the desk and took an earpiece off of the dead security guard and put it in his other ear, listening to see if anyone else caught them. The sound of flesh sizzling at his feet told him that the guards were indeed all lycan.

“Looks like we’re good, Selene. Plant the silver charges.”

Selene slipped through the roof of the elevator car, pressed a button for the top floor, and climbed back up on top of the elevator, attaching shaped silver charges to each of the elevator doors on her way up the five floors of the building, ducking as the elevator make it to the top. Crawling carefully, she attached the thermite charges on each cable coupling for the four elevators before scurrying out to the roof access of the building, shooting and killing both snipers there before pressing the remote detonator to have all of the charges blow at once.

An explosion rocked the building and the ground surrounding the area, alerting everyone that something was happening. Guards began to scramble, grabbing their pistols and coughing on the silver dust that was spreading through the main hallways of the building.

“LaFontaine, that’s your cue, come in hot.” Selene replied, “Lucian, roof access is open!”

Detective Valentine was next on the earpieces. “Raze, rear entrance is open! Masks on!”

Guards started to file out on the first floor, shouting at the Detective to stand down. He fired his final two shots from the Judge getting one of them in the chest before ducking for cover and reloading.

“Hollis, I need backup!”

* * *

Doctor Lane had Danny Lawrence sedated on his operating table, keeping her alive for the procedure in order to maximize the amount that he could harvest from her. He had to have her gassed with the highest concentration possible and was amazed at how long she had put up a fight against the drugs.

His window of time was quickly ticking away and he couldn’t handle the attack on the facility right then. “Baron Vordenberg! Dispatch the problem with extreme prejudice!”

Vordenberg nodded harshly, talking into the radio in his hand. “If you get a visual, kill it on sight!”

Dr. Lane turned to his assistant nurse. “You ready with IV anesthesia if her vitals go up?”

“Yes, sir.” He nodded to the teen lycan as gunfire continued and lycan roars could be heard. He and Vordenberg were certain that if their security transformed into their wolf form, that they could stop whatever was coming for them.

The overlapping conversations in his earbud, however, sapped that confidence.

_“All security on alert! It’s the Death Dealer Selene!”_

_“The intruder disabled elevator 4!”_

_“All the elevators are down!”_

_“Explosion on the second floor!”_

_“All the floors were hit with shaped charges!”_

_“They're using silver nitrate gas! Secure the lab!”  
“Vent the building!”_

Vordenberg turned, eyes wide in panic. “It's Selene. We need to evacuate, now.”

The doctor frowned in frustration. “Fine.” He turned to the assistant. “Start the protocol; collect the blood, then we move onto the liver, adrenal glands, then the pituitary. We are NOT canceling this procedure, understood? _We're moving it._ ”

Doctor Lane turned to his son Quint. “You find her. And you destroy her.”

“With pleasure.”

* * *

Detective Valentine's voice on the earpiece was hard to hear over the gunshots, instantly putting LaFontaine in a fight-or-flight reaction.

"Damn it, we need to get over there now!"

LaFontaine panicked and was ready to run across the street when Laura stopped them.

“Hey! We are in a van.”

“Valentine needs us now! And I don’t know how we can safely get Carmilla and JP there without them getting exposed to the sunlight and-”

“LaFontaine! We. Are in. A van!” Laura gestured to the front glass doors of Antigen as LaFontaine figured it out.

“You’re insane.” They shrugged it off. “Okay, fuck it!” LaFontaine put the van in gear and cut across the traffic, pulling into Antigen’s driveway and floored the accelerator.

“Buddy? You’re going to stop, right?” JP 2.5 asked, “I just got this corporeal body and wish to keep it intact for a while longer…”

“Just buckle yourself in and relax. Go rag doll; you won’t get injured as much on impact."

Laura had her passenger window down and the Detective’s Sage Control tear canister launcher at the ready.

The van crashed through the glass doors, shattering it into millions of tiny pieces of rectangular glass shards. As the van lurched to a stop, Laura leaned through the open window and launched a silver particulate gas grenade towards the oncoming security agents. Laura climbed out, went around the van, and repeated the process on the other side. She snapped it open at the middle, pulled out the expended cartridges, and re-loaded the Sage Control Ordinance Deuce Revolution and tossed it back to Det. Valentine as she lifted her Beretta M12 to fire and took down the guards that were closing in on him.

“Carm! Go!” Laura called out, using suppressive fire to cover them as she made her way over to the security desk while Carmilla and JP 2.5 filed out of the van, LaFontaine leading them back down to the lower level where the lab was.

Selene’s voice cut through the earbuds as Laura looked over the various security feeds with Detective Valentine as she had to occasionally dispatch the lycan security guards who came after them with her M12. “Selene here. Any sight of Lawrence?”

“None yet, but I have movement on a van at parking level 3.” Detective Valentine replied, “I think they are going to try and escape.”

“I’m on it.” Selene responded sharply.

Raze’s deep voice cut in. “Top floor secure. No survivors.”

Lucian’s voice chirped in as well. “Second floor secure, posting guards in the stairwells. The security here is entirely lycan, and they can scale the walls in wolf form. Keep an eye above you.”

“Carmilla?” Laura asked.

“The laboratory down here is clear, as well as the cryo chamber they had me in. If Danny’s here, she’s on another floor.” The vampire replied.

“Keep working your way through the building, everyone. LaFontaine, make the research disappear.”

“Can do, and… oh my god…”

“What is it?” Laura asked, ready to go down there to help them out.

JP 2.5 was the one to reply. “The lower lycans, the diseased ones that live in the sewer… that’s how Antigen disposed of their failed experiments. There’s a direct access hatch here.”

“It’s an alternate escape route for me and and JP, at least,” Carmilla said dryly. “But that’s a worst-case scenario, considering how many might be down there.”

It got quiet as Laura and Valentine looked over the bank of security monitors, and everything seemed to go a bit too quiet before Lucian’s voice pierced the silence.

“Selene, there’s a fire on the third floor in the elevator shaft! What the hell did you use?” Lucian asked, surprise in his voice.

“Thermite charges.” She replied, a warm hint of a chuckle in her voice.

Raze’s voice cut in. “No wonder I can see a hole burned all the way down- GRENADE!”

An explosion cracked through the earpieces as smoke covered up two of the monitors from the fifth floor. On the monitors with the smoke obscuring the view of the area, fully shifted lycans ran by, claws set deep into the walls as Raze’s team was ambushed.

“Raze is getting ambushed, 5th floor!” Detective Valentine shouted.

“Here too!” Lucian replied, and sure enough, they were getting pinned down in the third floor by the Antigen Lycans.

Laura took a look at the video feeds and noticed the three people quickly moving about on the third floor towards the parking garage. “Fall back, everyone! This is a diversion! Get to the parking garage!”

The fighting didn’t seem to die down as the Antigen lycans seemed invested in keeping the other two teams pinned down on their respective floors.

That’s when the fragmentation grenades were unleashed.

In close quarter combat, grenades were more than just stupid, they were suicidal. Using a flashbang or a gas canister made more sense; you could neutralize an enemy not not worry about harming yourself in the blowback. Even the silver dust grenades worked on the same principle, if you weren’t a lycan.  
  
_This was suicidal._

* * *

“Raze!”

Detective Valentine didn’t like the lack of response in the view screens. A few of them went dark and showed “NO SIGNAL” while others just went to static.

“They are headed to parking level 2… Raze?! I need you to respond.”

Laura looked on as the rest of her team made it past the second floor to get to the parking garage. “Oh, crap!” There was an insanely oversized lycan in wolf form chasing after Selene. “Carm, you and JP may want to hurry up, it looks like Selene is about to hit the boss level.”

Detective Valentine looked to the same monitor that Laura was. “Holy fuck… Raze, where are you?”

“We need to go!” Laura shouted at him.

“We’re needed here to orchestrate-”

“-I see her! I see her! Parking level 2. They're loading her into a van.” Laura spoke over him into the earbuds.

“What?” He looked over the monitors and confirmed it. “Selene, where are you? Selene? Fuck it!”

Laura and Detective Valentine made it to the parking garage while they heard a bloody firefight continue in Antigen behind them, only to see JP facing off with Dr Lane with his tactical shotgun out and pelting the doctor in his thigh as Carmilla had her sword out and was parrying a thrust from Vordenberg.

Laura saw the nurse loading a drugged-but-conscious Danny into the van and quickly sighted down her rifle and left a bullet wound in his bicep, buying herself a few seconds to put a few rounds into the engine block and the front tire.

That did, of course, anger the lycan and made him shift into his wolf form as he turned to her. She didn’t let him get far as she unloaded the whole clip straight into his chest, dropping him to the ground and twitching as the silver burned through his veins and she pulled out her Walther P99 and put a final shot in his head.

“You don’t mess with my girlfriend.” Once she was certain that he was dead, she lifted a set of keys from him and uncuffed a drowsy Danny Lawrence and gently slapped her face to try and wake her up.

Carmilla stepped around Vordenberg’s slashing strike and saw Laura with Danny. “If she okay, cupcake, I could use a hand here...”

Laura gave a nod towards the vampire, and was surprised at the agility that the Baron had. She was looking down the sights of her Walther and had to wonder exactly what he was. “Get me a shot!”

Carmilla’s blade struck his as their movements went from human to inhumanely fast. “You’ve chased me for three centuries, old man… I thought you just found the Elixir of Life a bit too late, but this isn’t even human!”

“No, it’s not. You haven’t figured it out yet?” Baron Vordenberg replied, stepping into her range and using the hilt of the sword to crack her skull. “Don’t you remember your little vampire friends when you were in Paris? How they seemed to disappear from you, one by one?”

Carmilla looked dazed as blood flowed down her face from the top of her skull. If she were human, that would have killed her. “What did you do to them?”

“Paulette, Justine, the Kendricks… oh, I had my fun with them, made them suffer as I kept pumping them for information and draining them of their life-sustaining blood! I have held onto my humanity while sipping from the chalice of immortality itself!”

“You… you killed them!” Carmilla’s fangs flashed in rage. “They did NOTHING to you!”

“You noticed them and not me, you loathsome harlot! You preyed on unsuspecting girls and perpetrated unspeakable acts on them!”

“What are you talking about?”

“I know what you do to them, how you lure them into your sinful ways with those lust-filled eyes!”

Carmilla staggered at that. “Oh my god, they were my lovers!”

“So you ADMIT to the evil acts of stealing blood, sodomy, and fornication!”

“I _had sex_ with my _girlfriend_ who **_donated her blood_** _, you half wit!_ ”

“When you had been promised to me!” Vordenberg made a feint with his sword that Carmilla tried to parry, leaving her defenseless as he pulled a UV flashlight from his jacket and began to burn her with it.

The smell of roasting flesh and a screaming Carmilla pierced the air as Laura finally had her shot and took it. It was excellent grouping, just like she had been trained by her father. Vordenberg collapsed in a heap, the UV flashlight clattering away uselessly in the parking garage.

“Carm?” Laura asked, gasping as she saw black and blistered hands trembling in front of a visibly disturbed Carmilla.

“I’m… I’m burning....” She mumbled fearfully.

“You’re okay. He’s dead.” Laura gently pushed the hands away and smiled as she saw the burning was minimal. “You’re okay. You’re alive.” She quickly pecked the vampire on the lips in celebration.

“Gods, god- okay…” Carmilla panted quickly, gulpling down her panic. “I’m here. How’s Danny?”

The ginger lycan was in her wolf form, growling in rage and sniffing the air. Laura helped Carmilla up from the ground as they both looked at Danny guiltily.

“Danny?” Laura asked nervously, putting herself between the lycan and the vampire. She had no idea how her girlfriend would react to seeing her kiss her ex, but Danny howled once in rage and made her way to JP 2.5 and shoved him out of the way so she could tear into Dr. Jacobs herself, snapping her teeth at him and slicing his gut open as she bit into his neck and tore it out with a satisfying crunch.

As the lycan doctor dropped dead, Danny roared in victory as she shuddered and collapsed, exhausted and returning to her human form. Carmilla and Laura were there instantly to help her up and throw a blanket over her nude form.

“You came back for me.” Danny muttered in surprise. “Both of you.”

“Of course I would!” Laura exclaimed, securing her weapon and putting it down.

“Yeah, well, things change.” Carmilla said as Laura put her arms around the ginger and kissed her deeply. Danny returned the kiss, glad to be safe and with her human.

Carmilla felt like the third wheel when Danny clasped her hand and pulled her in for the hug as well. “You’re okay, fang-face.”

Carmilla nodded, uncertain what this meant or where it would go, but was glad to be embraced by her. “You too, Xena.”

* * *

LaFontaine stayed behind in the lab, bundling up all of the research notes and hard drives in a massive pile, feeling guilty as they armed a thermite charge on top, knowing that this would be blatant overkill.

As they released the spoon, LaF counted the seconds as they scrambled up to the parking garage, running into Lucian’s team who had suffered major casualties, but had killed off every remaining lycan in the building.

“Anything from Raze?” They asked. Lucian just shook his head. As they arrived, Selene was facing off with Quint, who seemed immune to silver as she had expended both of her handguns straight into his chest with no real reaction.

“I’m stronger than you, Death Dealer! I HEAL INSTANTLY!” He backhanded Selene across the garage, making a sickening crunch that should have broken her spine in half. Instead, she rolled over to a squatting position, bared her fangs, and pulled a knife out of her boot.

Lucian growled, and so did the remaining three members from his team as they all went for the Uber-lycan together. One by one, the lycans shifted and used their claws to shred at Quint, whose wounds opened and freely bled until it healed within a matter of seconds. One of lycans got too close and Quint was able to snap their neck, making him drop instantly. Another had a set of claws tear through their neck and tore his trachea out, spraying blood everywhere. The fight continued as each of them took a lightning-fast slash at him and either missed or came back with only a temporary gash that healed too fast to cause any lasting damage.

“DROP!” Raze yelled, holding a 50-caliberBrowning M2HB that was supposed to be mounted on a vehicle somewhere. The lycans and Selene all ran away from Quint as Raze pulled the trigger, riddling him with a constant stream of bullets straight into his chest. Selene caught a device that LaFontaine threw at them and her eyes blazed in recognition of it.

The super lycan stumbled a bit from the constant barrage of bullets, but laughed once Raze ran out of ammo. The dark-skinned lycan looked through the hole he made in Quint with horror. “What are you?”

Quint grinned malevolently as the gaping hole in his chest already started to heal itself shut. “I’m the future. I. HEAL. INSTANTLY!”

The Death Dealer plunged the thermite charge in through his back, scrambling away as Quint tried to backhand her.

LaFontaine glared at the creature, remote detonator in their hand. “I was counting on it.” As they hit the button, the chemical reaction went off, reaching a temperature of over four thousand degrees fahrenheit in his chest cavity, cooking him alive from the inside out. The smell of charred flesh flash-burning hit the air before the lycan dropped to the ground, his internal organs turned to ash inside of him as the ground caught fire.

None of Lucian’s lycans raised a hand to help him or put out the flames.

* * *

Laura was in a safe house, tucked in comfortably between Carmilla and Danny as she hit the record button for her vlog.

“The world has fundamentally changed. Vampires, once a hidden enemy to mankind, are now openly hunted by a fearful society. And the Covenant that locked the Vampires and Lycans into generations of bitter war, has finally come to an end.

“There is a New Covenant; between Lucian’s pack and Selene’s and Thomas’ covens, and they are working together for the mutual benefit of both species against the humans bent on exterminating them. And there are humans like me out there, siding with them in hopes to quell the violence coming from the human side. They will rebuild, and we all will thrive together. Carmilla is soon leaving with Valentine in search for Mattie, while Danny and I continue to establish safe houses here and in the Americas.

“As for my… unusual relationship… We’re taking this one day at a time. I love them both for different reasons, and they are actually getting along now. Carm blames it on the fact that she now has a sweet tooth for gingers, and Danny doesn’t seem to mind a little bit of biting-”

“Babe, TMI.” Danny said, shaking her head.

“I don’t know, I like watching cupcake here ramble on. Besides, you _do_ like it when I bite.” Carmilla teased, narrowing her eyes and wagging her eyebrows at the lycan.

Danny smirked at that. “So you do. Should I give you a head start, kitty?” She licked her lips in anticipation.

“Don’t do me any favors, _pup_.” Carmilla mock-threatened as the two of them got up to go chase each other around outside. LaFontaine and JP came and joined Laura in front of the camera as JP gave a goofy wave.

“So, frosh, have you told them that they are at the pigtail-pulling part of the relationship yet?” LaFontaine asked amusedly.

“No way. I have learned my lesson, I do not interfere. I am going to stay out of it and let them figure it out.” Laura said, blushing slightly.

“Well said Miss Hollis. The three of you do make a lovely couple if I do say so myself.”

“Thanks, JP.” Laura turned back to the camera. “Mattie, if you’re out there and receiving this, come home. We miss you. And everyone else… stay safe, and thanks for watching.”


End file.
